South Park Parodies Let's Play and PewDiePie

[StewShearerOld]

South Park Parodies Let's Play and PewDiePie


South Park returned to the topic of video games last night with a new episode focused on Let's Play videos and the people who watch them.

<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/south%20park?os=south+park>South Park and <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/editorials/reviews/11065-South-Park-The-Stick-of-Truth-Review-A-Storm-of-Swear-Words>video games are just a good fit. Between classic episodes like <a href=http://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s10e08-make-love-not-warcraft#source=57baee9c-b611-4260-958b-05315479a7fc:25eebdac-ed8e-11e0-aca6-0026b9414f30&position=8&sort=!airdate>Make Love, Not Warcraft and more recent ones like <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/129638-South-Park-Spoofs-PS4-Xbox-One-Console-Wars>Black Friday and Freemium Isn't Free, the show's creative minds seem to have an uncanny ability to look at the issues and trends in the game industry and create knockout satire based on them. This in mind, you can perhaps understand my excitement when I learned that last night's episode would again be setting its sights on video games.

The focus of the new episode, dubbed #Rehash, was the growing popularity of Let's Play videos. The episode opens with series regular Kyle bringing home a copy of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. Hoping to spend the day playing it with his little brother Ike, he's shocked to find him more interested in watching PewDiePie Let's Play videos than in playing the game himself. From there, it spring boards into an overarching discussion of how entertainment evolves and how older generations fail to empathize with younger ones and see parallels with their own days as whipper-snappers. Oh, and there was also a holographic Michael Jackson and more of Randy Marsh's double life as New Zealand singer Lorde.

Overall, I'd say that the episode itself wasn't quite as strong as some of the show's other detours into gaming. It just had too much going on and the Let's Play and Lorde storylines didn't mesh up quite as well as I think its writers were hoping. It still had some great gags though, especially from Cartman, who starts his own YouTube channel where he comments "on my friends commenting" on video games. Interested viewers can give the episode a free viewing at <a href=http://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s18e09-rehash#source=2b6c5ab4-d717-4e84-9143-918793a3b636:63a32034-1ea6-492d-b95b-9433e3f62f8d&position=1&sort=airdate>the South Park website.

Source: <a href=http://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s18e09-rehash#source=2b6c5ab4-d717-4e84-9143-918793a3b636:63a32034-1ea6-492d-b95b-9433e3f62f8d&position=1&sort=airdate>South Park Studios


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[W3rK]

Not to nitpick but I think the author has his islands confused... Actually almost exactly antipodal opposite.

 

[StewShearerOld]

Not to nitpick but I think the author has his islands confused... Actually almost exactly antipodal opposite.

Crud muffin. This is what happens when you Mighty Ducks 2 the night before writing something. Thanks for the catch.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Am going watch this episide right now, the only way a non-resident of America can...

 

[Mr.Mattress]

I like that Cartman's Face Cam is literally warping reality by existing everywhere and not just on a Computer Screen.

I'll watch this episode later on today or tomorrow...

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

Episode was good, really liking how every episode this season actually ties together and anything that happened within the episodes is mentioned in others instead of being forgotten instantly by the next episode as if nothing happened.

 

[VanQ]

Anyone else think that South Park is building up to a GamerGate episode this season?

We've had an SJW episode.
A Free 2 Pay episode.
Now we have a Lets Play episode.

 

[The Apple BOOM]

Anyone else think that South Park is building up to a GamerGate episode this season?

We've had an SJW episode.
A Free 2 Pay episode.
Now we have a Lets Play episode.

Oh no...
I don't know if the idea of that is inspiring or terrifying.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Never get lets plays. If its a game with strategy and skill is involved an the person playing is using skill and strategy. Then they can be good. But mostly lets play are boring as they play like we do - as in looking every where and playing like a beginner as they learn the game. Oh and i dont get pewdiepie, i watched a few vids and they are utter crap. I dont get why he has followers. Each to their own i guess.

 

[Fr33Lanc3r.007]

Never get lets plays. If its a game with strategy and skill is involved an the person playing is using skill and strategy. Then they can be good. But mostly lets play are boring as they play like we do - as in looking every where and playing like a beginner as they learn the game. Oh and i dont get pewdiepie, i watched a few vids and they are utter crap. I dont get why he has followers. Each to their own i guess.

As a form of artistic criticism, I really do like the idea of Lets Plays. They provide space for long form analysis and can still be quite amusing if you get the right player/cast.
Unfortunately most of the popular ones are just idiots doing stupid things. There are good ones though, if you can find them.

 

[Kaimax]

Anyone else think that South Park is building up to a GamerGate episode this season?

We've had an SJW episode.
A Free 2 Pay episode.
Now we have a Lets Play episode.

Add the Kickstarter episode, the Oculus Rift episode, and Magic the Gathering Episode as well lol. Season 18 feels as the one that's trying to pick on popular gaming culture.

 

[Davroth]

They seem to have a better grasp on this then they had on WoW. Watching the WoW episode after playing the game for like 3 years since beta, I couldn't help but feel a little like watching the cutscenes from Zelda CDI. It got the right characters and some terms from the 'real' thing, but most of it is either just plain wrong or makes no sense in context of the actual game.

I always felt the WoW episode was kind of made for people who know WoW but never actually played it.

That said, I do find the Randy is Lorde subplot pretty interesting. I wouldn't have thought that would turn into an overarching thing, but I'm really pleased by it.


Also, has anyone else noticed that the scenes with PewDiePie in the corner, he does't even pretend to actually play CoD? I thought that was rather funny. xD

 

[NomNom The World]

They seem to have a better grasp on this then they had on WoW. Watching the WoW episode after playing the game for like 3 years since beta, I couldn't help but feel a little like watching the cutscenes from Zelda CDI. It got the right characters and some terms from the 'real' thing, but most of it is either just plain wrong or makes no sense in context of the actual game.

Just like a majority of cultures they imitate on 'The big bang theory'.

I get the entertainment of the 'lets play' tho, to an extent. I watch Jim's Squirt plays occasionally and while I have no interest in most of the games being played, the commentary is dope. I've never watched the dude they're talking about in the episode, but I've heard of him through Jim's youtube and that he makes "fat stacks of cheddar" in one of his commentaries about the validity of lets players getting paid. To me it's basically situation comedy to me.

 

[Zacharious-khan]

This is an odd case of me disapproving of south park. Not for any hipstery reason just that i think the less people who know about pewdeepie the better

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

This season of South Park has really felt like a departure from the the norm. Yeah, they're doing the same types of jokes and pop culture stuff, but there's a lot more reality-warping like Cartman's window and the ending of the VR episode. The multi-episode plots also feel very strange.

Not complaining though. It's super sweet that they're doing some things different.

 

[PH3NOmenon]

Am going watch this episide right now, the only way a non-resident of America can...

Legally and for free through southparkstudios.com?

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

I understand Let's Playing as a phenomenon. Its fun watching gameplay of games we might not want to spend money on without getting too invested in them. Sometimes the commentary is funny or instructive and that attracts views.

There are a lot of terrible LPers out there though who rely on gimmickry ala Cartman so I found the clip quite funny. As someone who wants to casually put up gameplay videos; this hit close to home. It was pretty fun watching South Park's take on it all.

 

[McKinsey]

This is an odd case of me disapproving of south park. Not for any hipstery reason just that i think the less people who know about pewdeepie the better

Why would you say that? Pewdie is a great bro, and though not all of his videos are interesting, some are entertaining as hell.
My only gripe with the episode is that they've inserted actual Pewd's footage into the show, instead of making a cartoon version of him. That's kinda weird, but I think they're building up to something.

 

[Gali]

Am going watch this episide right now, the only way a non-resident of America can...

Legally and for free through southparkstudios.com?

Nope, doesn't work. At least in my country (Germany). They redirect me to the .de site which does pretty much the same thing... but doesn't have the most recent episode up. I don't know how long it takes until I can watch it there.

So yeah, if you want to watch Southpark as soon as the US audience does, you can try to proxy the shit out of southparkstudios... or do the same as that guy.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Anyone else think that South Park is building up to a GamerGate episode this season?

We've had an SJW episode.
A Free 2 Pay episode.
Now we have a Lets Play episode.

Oh no...
I don't know if the idea of that is inspiring or terrifying.

If they are, I'd be quite satisfied with them doing so. I'd love to seem them take that issue to task but wonder if they could find anything to really satirize as any casual observer/viewer/non-gamer would even understand the "issue". Hell i'm a gamer and I don't even get the "message" of that whole fiasco because I feel the whole damn thing is convoluted and contradictory (like trying to square the Old Testament God with post-Jesus God... lol).